Category: Budapest

Should you decide that having woken up with the sun on a Sunday morning (or what you assume to be the sun, hidden by a thick veil of golden-yellow mist) you might as well go out for a walk, and some pictures while you’re at it, you will learn some important facts about Budapest…

There is a category of ideas which look excellent both before the event itself, like a hopeful promise yet to be fulfilled that will surely feel just right when it finally comes to pass and in retrospect, when all the wrinkles and annoyances are smoothed over by the candyfloss hues of remembrance. This category of…

Having explored the villas of Mátyásföld a couple of weeks back, we decided it was now time to investigate another leafy peculiarity of the city: Wekerletelep, lying in district XIX, and easily accessible from the blue metro’s Határ út station. Provided the metro is running, which on the weekends it is not, so we ambled around…

The best thing about going on a city walk with a historian is that they will enthusiastically convey anecdotes about the places you’re visiting, throwing in a couple of juicy details for good measure, and then, with a much more matter of fact tone, they will also inform you that your exciting trivia is just…

One of my favourite books as a child was a beautiful shiny orange hardcover by the Hungarian name of Mosó Masa Mosodája– its alliterative beauty will obviously be lost in a direct English translation, which would be Masha the Raccoon’s Laundrette, but one might alternatively undertake some linguistic acrobatics along the lines of Washy Wooshy’s…

The main disclaimer to our Budapest 100 experience this year is that, no surprise here, we were lazy. Not to go, of course, but to register for the events which had a fixed schedule, and this obviously included some of the fancier houses, such as as the Magda courtyard in Mátyás square and the Gutenberg…

Last summer was a traumatic experience for Margaret Island’s tribe of runners: after having heroically made it through the reconditioning of the track, which at least held the promise of a great reward at the end of the suffering, persecution began again in the build up to and during the swimming&other splashy sports world championships….

Writing about the cherry blossom festival held annually in ELTE’s Botanical Garden (or Füvészkert in Hungarian) is perhaps not particularly timely, as this year’s event was held on the previous two weekends of April but recommending it without the pictures is somewhat of a Catch 22 situation. Sure enough, we do have pictures from previous…

In the past years I have occasionally complained to whoever was willing to listen (or not, it was not really their choice) that I miss visiting the El Grecos in the Museum of Fine Arts. The El Grecos, mind you, have not made any grand escape, it’s simply that the museum is closed for restoration,…

It takes special talent to go on a city walk on one of the coldest mornings of the winter, or, to highlight my gifts even more, on the only truly freezing weekend morning of the entire season. Nevertheless, I managed to embark on the adventure with little to no regrets: perhaps I could have taken…